23Aug13

Guantanamo war crimes tribunal in 'hot mess' over computer problems

Defense lawyers asked the judge in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal on
Friday to halt pretrial hearings in the 9/11 case until technicians fix a slew of
computer and email problems that they said had made it nearly impossible to
do their work.

"We're basically put back in the 19th century," said Army Major Jason Wright,
who represents the alleged mastermind of the hijack plane attacks, Khalid
Sheik Mohammed. "It takes about five to 10 times what it would normally take
to do defense functions."

Pentagon technical advisers have said it would take up to 111 days to fix the
problems once a contract was signed and money allocated, and that it was
unlikely the work could be finished before the start of 2014.

The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, said he would consider the matter
further at a pretrial hearing scheduled to start on September 16 and decide
then whether to cancel hearings set for October, November, December and
January.

"I understand the serious nature of being able to communicate as a defense
counsel," the judge said.

Defense lawyers said emails they sent were not received, investigative files
that took years to compile had vanished and outside monitors were able to
access their internet searches. Prosecutors and defense lawyers had
temporarily been given access to each other's files, they said.

Some of the problems were disclosed earlier in the year. By April they had
grown so severe that the chief defense counsel, Air Force Colonel Karen
Mayberry, ordered defense lawyers to stop using their Pentagon computers for
any confidential casework.

That means that to share draft documents with legal team members in other
cities, they load them onto external drives, go to Starbucks and file them via
Wi-Fi using their personal computers and personal email accounts, Wright
said.

He said the chief of staff for the Pentagon official overseeing the tribunals
issued her diagnosis in a conference call on Thursday, declaring: "This is a hot
mess."

Clay Trivett, one of the prosecutors, questioned the severity of the problems,
noting that the defense lawyers had produced PowerPoint presentations and
extensive briefs for 29 legal motions argued at a week-long hearing that ended
on Friday.

The problems stem from two main sources, the lawyers said.

Some began when technicians tried to create a mirrored system so work they
did in Washington and work they did at the remote Guantanamo naval base
were synchronized in both systems. Other issues began with a switch in email
servers.

Defense attorney James Harrington, who represents Yemeni prisoner Ramzi
bin al Shibh, said he had essentially been reduced to drafting motions with pen
and paper.

Another of Mohammed's lawyers, David Nevin, called the problems especially
worrisome in a death penalty case that prosecutors have routinely described
as the most complex in U.S. history.

"In this day and age you cannot practice law this way," Nevin said.

The five defendants are accused of training and funding the hijackers who
rammed four commercial jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a
field in Pennsylvania in 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people. They face charges
that include conspiring with al Qaeda, terrorism and murder.

All five skipped court on Friday, the Muslim holy day.

Nine people whose relatives died in the attacks traveled to the base to watch
the hearings. They said they had already waited 12 years for a verdict but
would be patient if the computer problems caused more delays.

"We want something that stands on appeal," said Stephan Gerhardt, a
Canadian citizen whose brother, Ralph, was a Cantor Fitzgerald vice president
killed in the World Trade Center. "If it's going to take longer than we'd like it to
take, that's fine. We're going to be here 'til the end."

This document has been published on 26Aug13 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with
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